


Run to catch up with the sun

by crimsonepitaph



Category: CW Network RPF
Genre: Explicit Language, M/M, Minor Character Death, Panic Attacks, death of a teenager
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:10:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Special Agent Ackles learns the past never stays in the past when he's assigned to work a case with his ex-partner and lover, Agent Padalecki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1:** Title is a lyric from the Pink Floyd song, _Time_.
> 
>  **Author's note #2:** Written for this year's round of spn_reversebang, based on the gorgeous art by darklittleheart. I had a great time working with her - and the art is fantastic! A huge thank you goes out to her for all the effort she put into this collaboration.
> 
>  **Author's note #3:** This was a last minute pinch hit. Knowing what I had planned to write, the length of the story vs the time available - I didn't even dream that borgmama1of5 would manage to look over it. But because she is an amazing human being, she did. Coherence and sense in the story are in great part her contribution, for which I remain immensely grateful.

 

  
It isn’t true, what they say; time doesn’t heal all wounds. Time shapes the memories, molds them into stones placed at the foundation of you.  
  
Jensen hadn’t wanted to leave.  
  
Everything is the same. Almost. Glass walls tinted smoky grey, alive only in the reflection of the outside. Alive with all the movement; clinical, cold, numb in all the colors it absorbs.  
  
Walls -- white, gray, beige, more grey.  
  
Chatter. A man, dressed in a rumpled white shirt, tie loosened, edges of fabric astray over his belt. Focused, explaining something with big hand gestures. Deep, rough voice. Many heads, bowed, eyes glued to monitors that bleed black and blue.  
  
Silence as he approaches Special Agent in Charge Beaver’s office.  
  
It’s three years since he’s been through that door, three years since he’d come out with his head bowed, under the scrutinizing gazes of all the agents around. It was a show, a welcome distraction, the fall of Icarus they all watched, showing sympathy, hiding judgement and, maybe, pity.  
  
Jensen breathes, slowly, deeply, and fixes his suitcoat, absently unfastens the button.  
  
He’s prepared for whatever he finds on the other side. And still, for a moment he wonders why here, why him, why now. The second before he opens the door, he knows. It’s him on the other side.  
  
It’s his past, staring at him with bright, beautiful hazel eyes.

 

 

 

                                                   

 

 

Time hasn’t changed Jared.  
  
Time hasn’t marred the outside.  
  
Jared still looks like he did at their first meeting; implausibly large, both in presence and stance. Loud, even when he doesn’t make a sound. Hands, resting on his thighs, unnervingly still against the staccato tap of his foot against the floor. The same challenging glint in his eyes.  
  
Jensen is numb.  
  
It’s a choice, one he didn’t know he could make until now.  
  
He switches to Beaver, who’s seated on the opposite side of the desk from Jared, sharp-dressed, with a pleasant smile painted to match.  
  
“Special Agent Ackles,” Beaver rasps out, and it’s an invitation, a welcoming, and nothing like it should be at all.  
  
Before Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles was a name. A standard. A quiet man who was really, really good at his job.  
  
After Jared, he was just a guy caught with his dick hanging out of his pants.  
  
“SAC Beaver, Agent Padalecki,” he greets, formal and precise.  
  
He takes a seat, and catches Jared watching from the corner of his eye.  
  
“I’ve been told to report to you by my supervisor,” he continues, undeterred from his original plan.  
  
Beaver nods, pulls a few thin folders out of the stack resting on his desk and places them in front of Jensen. He opens the first one.  
  
“That’s the case you got at the White Collar Division,” Beaver says, pointing at the image of a missing sculpture Jensen’s all too familiar with. “And the other three ones are SA Padalecki’s cases, all murders, all tied with your one.”  
  
“How’s that?”  
  
“The signature that’s on the piece of art is on the bodies in Padalecki’s cases.”  
  
The sculpture is obscure, worth nothing to a keen eye. Its disappearance wouldn’t even have caught Jensen’s eye if not for the meticulous inventory of the rest of the items stolen from a rich couple’s house.  
  
A statue of a woman, tall, made in bronze, but devoid of any beauty or shine.  
  
The least valuable piece in a collection that amassed millions of dollars.  
  
A collection that Jensen had been diligently tracking for months, with no resolution until now.  
  
“… so I’m assigning this case to you and Agent Padalecki. I’ve already talked with your supervisor, Ackles,” are the next words that Jensen registers.  
His reaction is inward. A moment where everything collapses, too many fluid thoughts that fuse into an indecipherable one.  
  
Jared’s reaction is vehement, outraged, roaring from deep inside. Not evident in the string of curses whispered, but in the sudden change in position, leaning forward, back stiff, hands clasped together in an almost white-knuckled grip.  
  
Jared will always obey orders. He’ll protest, he’ll put on a fight, but, in the end, he’ll always do. He was – _is_ – a Marine. Semper fi.  
  
It’s one of the bricks in the wall they’ve both built, the wall that separates them, and separates the present from all the chances they’ve lost.  
  
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Jensen finally gets out, and, somewhere inside, a voice he tries like hell to shut up laughs at that massive understatement.  
  
Beaver sizes him up, eyes hooded, a thoughtful gaze that simmers with all the unsaid knowledge.  
  
“I didn’t ask for your input, Agent Ackles.”  
  
He turns to Jared, whose leisure foot-tapping has been upped to a jagged rhythm , yet whose gaze is unflinching. To someone who didn’t know Jared, it would look like he was calm.  
  
“You’ve both collected too much information on your respective cases for it to be efficient to be passed to someone else. You know these folders inside out. It makes sense for you to be working together,” Beaver tactfully states, then adds, “regardless of any previous interactions you two have had.”  
  
_Strangers. Partners. Friends. Lovers. Strangers again._  
  
“I can take care of it on my own,” is what Jared says in a level tone, a little too strained, a little too forced.  
  
Jensen, in spite of himself, laughs.  
  
“Because you’ve been doing such a good job these last few months. Five bodies, is it?” he spits out, and regrets almost as soon as he does.  
  
Jared turns to him, for the first time today, and Jensen tells himself he’s imagining the sadness in Jared’s eyes. It’s a contrast to the set of his lips – anger, unbridled, raw.  
  
Jensen prepares for words he can pretend to forget until they haunt his dreams and every single moment alone with his thoughts.  
  
But they don’t come. Beaver’s rough voice sounds out, demanding, final.  
  
“You’ll be working together, Padalecki. There’s no way around that. Now get the hell out of my office before this turns into a lover’s spat.”  
  
It’s harsh, authoritative, but strangely, not unkind.  
  
Jared doesn’t protest. He gets up, walks out of the office without looking back.  
  
“Now. Let’s talk arrangements while you’re with us, Agent Ackles,” Beaver says, and Jensen falls back in his seat, too tired to argue with anything.  
  
The last three years have taken a toll on him. He’s reluctant to admit it, only does when he’s alone, with a guitar in his hands, fingers touching the strings even though they’ve forgotten how to play it right.

 

 

 

                                            

 

The setting sun leaves behind trails of amethyst dissolved in liquid warmth that meet with time in the horizon, hours lost to never come back.  
  
The cigarette smoke dances upwards, merges with outlines of clouds over the skyline. Fragile, deformed silhouettes that break apart under Jensen’s eyes.  
  
“I thought you quit.”  
  
Jared’s voice is soft, warm, ruin of eternity left behind.  
  
“I did.”  
  
It’s not a lie. But change is the only thing that stayed the same after he and Jared broke up.  
  
Jensen says the first thing he thinks in reaction. “You left your hair long.”  
  
Jared’s standing there, melting sun behind his back. Hands on hips, pulling back his suit jacket and revealing his badge and gun. At Jensen’s voice,  like a command, Jared’s right hand comes up, fingers sliding through his hair lazily, looking straight into Jensen’s eyes.  
  
And Jensen just watches, wonders if Jared even realizes he’s doing that.  
  
“I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this,” Jensen says, just to fill the silence that has already taken hold of the world around.  
  
Jared shrugs.  
  
He’s already said too much. Then, now.  
  
He leaves with a bitter smile and an aborted movement to touch Jensen’s hand.  
  
Jensen leans back on the wall near the rooftop door, lights another cigarette, and watches the sky for a long time.

 

 

                                             

 

_FOUR YEARS AGO_  
  
_It’s not his alarm clock that wakes him up; it’s the smell of coffee, freshly brewed, and the sound of Genesis’ Land of Confusion._  
  
_The radio._  
  
_He finds Jared in the kitchen, in a pair of track pants and nothing else, back from his morning run. Sweat is trickling from Jared’s neck down his back, muscles bunching and shifting as he reaches for the sugar in the top cupboard, humming along to the song._  
  
_Jensen smiles softly to himself._  
  
_He presses a kiss into Jared’s shoulder as he passes him by, leans back on the kitchen island with the newly acquired cup of coffee in his hand._  
  
_Jared turns to him after a few seconds, and he doesn’t say good morning, just kisses Jensen, long, deep, hard. Jared tastes of coffee, and Jared shivers in his hands when Jensen scratches the back of his neck, at the base of his buzz cut._  
  
_“Morning,” Jared rasps out between shaky breaths when they break apart._  
  
_Jensen just laughs._  
  
_“Come on, I made toast and cheese omelets,” Jared adds, and motions Jensen around, where the table is summarily set, with a plate and two whiskey glasses full of orange juice._  
  
_Jensen arches an eyebrow._  
  
_Jared shrugs. “They were there from last night.”_  
  
_“You aren’t staying?”_  
  
_Jared shakes his head. “No, they called me in to look over some emails Cyber decrypted last night.”_  
  
_Jensen nods, sits down._  
  
_“Gonna hit the shower,” Jared says, and presses a kiss onto the top of Jensen’s head, taking his glass and heading for the bedroom._  
  
_“Not on the nightstand,” Jensen shouts after him. “Or use a fucking coaster this time!”_  
  
_He gets no answer, except a mumbled ‘yeah’ and a cheeky grin fifteen minutes after that when Jared, dressed in his suit pants and a shirt not yet buttoned proudly deposits the glass in the sink under Jensen’s watchful gaze._  
  
_“I’m impressed,” Jensen deadpans._  
  
_“Two days of medical leave and you’re already turning into a cranky old man.”_  
  
_“One more, then I’m back, and we’ll see who’s an old man,” Jensen mumbles, more or less because Jared is right._  
  
_And Jared laughs, full, resonating sound._  
  
_It’s morning like these that make Jensen afraid of what’s to come._

 

                          


	2. Part Two

  
  
Jensen sees that Jared still drinks his coffee from the USMC mug. The one with the Marine insignia that implies, _This is my coffee mug. There are many like it, but this one is mine_.  
  
There’s something to be said about loyalty, even when it’s to the wrong thing.  
  
“Good morning,” Jensen says, with the full intention to be civilized for the duration of his stay.  
  
Jared nods and mumbles something, but turns back to the files on his desk. His cubicle is small, but littered with folders and boxes with files – the ordered chaos which defined Jared and frustrated Jensen so much.  
  
Jensen borrows a chair from one of the empty desks in the vicinity, sits down, and starts sipping the coffee from his Starbucks cup. He waits, watches the pale light dance in the early hours of the morning.  
  
“Tell me about your case,” is what Jared starts with when he finally decides to talk.  
  
And Jensen does.  
  
He has no energy to be spent on arguing. He doesn’t want to, sees no purpose in it.  
  
So he tells Jared about the case that brought him here. Jensen tells him how it was nothing out of the usual, until the photographs he submitted for evidence had triggered the connection with Jared’s case.  
  
“It’s a sculpture, nothing more, nothing less. Bronze. Chipped in a couple spots. Signed with an ‘M,’ not a full name. The only piece done by this artist, as far as the experts can tell.”  
  
Jared nods thoughtfully, jots something down on his pad.  
  
“I read the file, but I wanted to hear it from you,” Jared confesses.  
  
Jensen doesn’t know whether to take that as a white flag placed on the pile of debris that is their past, or as a challenge.  
  
He asks Jared to update him on all the murder cases instead.  
  
“There’s not a lot to tell,” Jared says with a hint of frustration in his voice. “Three bodies found within a month of each other or so, all carrying the same mark on the fingertip of their pinky finger, two others similarly marked two years ago.”  
  
“Cause of death?”  
  
“Asphyxiation.”  
  
“And the vics?”  
  
 “All females in their twenties. No other evidence found on the bodies. Signature was tattooed on, rudimentary, probably done with a tattoo gun in the home like every drunk college kid has. Doesn’t help us much, either,” Jared shrugs.  
  
Jensen smiles. “Aw. You said _us_.”  
  
It confuses Jared. He doesn’t know how to react. He likes things clear, he likes things he understands.  
  
“I thought –“  
  
“That we were ignoring it?” Jensen finishes for him. “We are.”  
  
“There’s nothing to ignore, Jensen. You made that very clear.”  
  
That didn’t take long. It’s a room filling up with gas fumes, and they both have a match in their hands.  
  
Jensen wants to do what’s right. He wants to be the better man. But he can’t. “No, I think you were the one that did that when you murdered a kid in cold blood.”  
  
It pays off, better than Jensen wanted, and worse than Jensen wished.  
  
Jared’s expression closes off. He lowers his eyes and looks away, and the silence is just salt in the wound Jensen has blown wide open.  
  
He struggles for something to say that repairs that. Repairs _everything_. But he can’t do that, either, because there’s nothing to be found. They’ve made choices, and they’ve chosen paths.  
  
Jared clears his throat, and it shakes Jensen out of his thoughts.  
  
“Well. As long as we got that clear –“ Jared says, in a tone that bleeds sarcasm.  
  
“Jared –“  
  
Jensen doesn’t say sorry. Jensen doesn’t say anything else. He isn’t sorry. He’s angry. He’s not sure he’s anything else.  
  
He leans back in his chair while Jared gets up, presumably to get another coffee. That’s what Jared does. Avoidance. Ignorance. There isn’t a problem until it hits him in the face. And if the problem can’t be solved with a bomb or a gun, well, then you’re shit out of luck.  
  
It’s easy to blame it on Jared. It justifies being angry. Blaming someone else is miserable, and entirely too fucking easy, because this way, he doesn’t have to look inside himself.  
  
It’s about eleven in the morning when Jared gets back with a box of evidence in his hands.  
  
It’s about eleven thirty when Jensen climbs up to the roof, lights up a cigarette with trembling hands.

 

 

                                                  

 

 

_THREE YEARS AND A HALF AGO_  
  
_It’s quiet._  
  
_The monitors are black._  
  
_They don’t stay that way long – Genevieve’s “Got it” announces the black crumbling to a pixelated greyscale image of a bench, a man, and a bomb._  
  
_“Shit.”_  
  
_That’s SAC Kane._  
  
_“You said the board messages put the meeting at three o’clock.”_  
  
_And that’s the neatly wrapped statement that best describes that clusterfuck._  
  
_Genevieve looks scared, guilty and determined all the same time. She types scarily fast. Jensen watches the screen. He watches the man looking calm. He looks so … normal._  
  
_Jeans and a novelty comic-book hero t-shirt. Black curly hair. Young._  
  
_It’s a jazz concert in the park. He listens, plays along with the rhythm with his fingertips on the edge of the bench._  
  
_“Ackles, what’s Harris and Padalecki’s ETA?”_  
  
_Jensen asks. Jared’s voice sounds in his ear, clear and sharp. Focused._  
  
_“Two minutes.”_  
  
_That’s cutting it way too close. Jensen knows. Kane does, too. They misjudged. They were played. But it isn’t like there is any turning back now._  
  
_He hates that he’s not in the field with Jared. And he’s grateful. Kane could have fired them both when he found out. Instead he separated them, and covered with the higher-ups._  
  
_And he was right. Jensen’s heart seems to skip a beat when Jared appears on the screen._  
  
_They talk. Jared speaks in Arabic with the man, and Danneel works on the bomb._  
  
_It’s … anticlimactic._  
  
_Jared rattles off question, threats, all he can think of. The young man just stares at him. He’s confused. He doesn’t understand. But Jared doesn’t see that._  
  
_“Jared, English. Speak to him in English,” Jensen says into the open communication line._  
  
_Jared does. The guy is just a student answering an ad, looking for some extra cash. He’s waiting for someone._  
  
_“Guys, the bomb’s not real, either,” Danneel’s voice sounds out between pants, “has no reactive counterpart. But someone sure worked hard to make it look that way.”_  
  
_Everyone breathes in, relieved._  
  
_Kane kicks a desk hard enough that pencils and a mouse clatter off the edge and fall. He knows it’s not the end, and he knows this was a handed victory in an all-out war._  
  
_“God damn it. Scan the area for suspicious presences, then get back,” Kane barks at Jared and Danneel, though they all know – whoever’s responsible for the farce, they’re long gone._  
  
_He hears Jared’s confirmation, and chairs scraping back._  
  
_He watches Jared’s long, confident strides on the screen and Danneel’s careful walk for a few more seconds. He allows himself to breathe deep, and counts to five._  
  
_Jared’s fine. So Jensen turns. He’s ready to go back to work again._  
  
_That’s when the shot rings out._

 

 

                                         

 

 

Memories.  
  
That’s all that’s left of everything.  
  
Everything – everyone’s – different in the photograph that has been carefully placed on her headstone, evidence that someone still visits, still remembers.  
  
Jensen studies the picture: Chris Kane, Special Agent in Charge in the middle. Self-assured smile, playful eyes. Hands in his pockets. Genevieve, small, delicate, mischievous grin. Steve. Rigid and awkward, eyes almost closed. But smiling. Danneel, tall, beautiful, fiery. Holding up bunny ears behind Jared’s back.  
  
Jared, who back then was the new guy. Jared, with his head closely shaved. Stony-faced. You’d never guess who Jared was from that picture. Or _Is_. Jensen doesn’t know, even now.  
  
And him, although it doesn’t feel so. He’s beaming. Different from the man he sees in the mirror every night before he goes to sleep. He’s happy. Content, at least.  
  
The writing on the back of the photograph said _CT Gold Team, 2008._  
  
“Didn’t think you’d ever show your ugly face back here, Ackles.”  
  
A voice, and Jensen first reaction is his hand on the gun. But it’s familiar.  
  
“Chris,” Jensen recognizes without turning around.  
  
“The one and only.”  
  
“What are you doing here?” Jensen asks.  
  
The answer is obvious, and yet, that’s not the reply that Jensen wants.  
  
“Checking up on my girl,” Chris responds. “Just like every other Friday.”  
  
“Today is Tuesday.”  
  
There’s silence for a few beats.  
  
“So it is,” Kane says succinctly.  
  
“We look good in that picture,” Kane adds after a moment where years condense in seconds.  
  
Jensen laughs. There isn’t any humor in it.  
  
“Do they still let you bully around people, Kane?”  
  
“Nah, man. Just one of you grunts now.”  
  
Jensen finally turns around. But when he does, he knows all the reasons he didn’t until now. Chris hasn’t changed. A wrinkle here and there, but the same curve of his lips, the same glint in his eyes.  
  
Jensen looks at him for a long time.  
  
“How’s White Collar Crimes treating you, Ackles?” Chris asks.  
  
They’ve both run out of questions that mean something.  
  
“Good,” Jensen lies.  
  
“Heard you and Padalecki were back working together.”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “We’re trying to make the best of it. I’m still not sure it’s not some fucked up prank,” he adds with a small smile.  
  
Kane snickers. “All that time in Counterterrorism made you a conspiracy theorist.”  
  
Jensen manages to find an answering smile to that.  
  
“How’s Padalecki?”  
  
That, Jensen wasn’t expecting. He raises his eyes to meet Kane’s, surprised.  
  
Kane shrugs. “Band’s all broken up, man.”  
  
“Still – “ Jensen wonders, because that’s not how it happened in his mind.  
  
He left. They stayed.  
  
“All I know is he’s been working cold cases since the whole fiasco,” Chris explains. “Kept tabs on him, on all of you, best I could, but –“  
  
“Nobody made it exactly easy,” Jensen finishes for him.  
  
It’s hard. They’re a reminder for each other. They’re memories in flesh and blood, they’re Pandora’s boxes, and Hope has left the building.  
  
“Hit me up for a beer while you’re in town,” Chris says, short and harsh after the silence becomes too much.  
  
Jensen nods. Chris looks at him, and there’s a handshake. Maybe a hug.  
  
Jensen doesn’t remember.  
  
It feels like he’s been standing at Danneel’s grave for a long time.


	3. Chapter 3

  
  
The cars are identical. Different license plates, but otherwise, completely interchangeable, Jensen observes as he walks through the parking lot, heading for the FBI building entrance, coffee in hand.  
  
He’s added an extra shot in preparation. Jared’s slow to warm up, but when he gets going – well, he imposes a rhythm Jensen could never really keep up with comfortably.  
  
He’s proven right when he sees Jared striding towards him with a frown and pursed lips.  
  
“Get in the car,” is what Jared greets him with on a beautiful Wednesday morning.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
Jared doesn’t answer, just climbs in. Jensen spends a long second glaring at the empty spot Jared has just disappeared from, and follows him.  
  
“Where are we going?”  
  
Jensen’s survival instinct has betrayed him, but it’s still in there.  
  
“Crime scene. There’s another body.”  
  
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “I thought this was a cold case.”  
  
“It was.”  
  
“So another body? That doesn’t strike you as strange?” Jensen tries to pry out of a clearly passive-aggressive Jared.  
  
Sometimes Jensen wishes he didn’t know Jared as well as he does.  
  
Jared shrugs. “Everything about this case is strange.”  
  
Jensen watches Jared’s profile. Impassive, focused, but composed so, rather than instinctive.  
  
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it?”  
  
Jared nods, but he doesn’t respond.  
  
“Are you serious right now?” Jensen huffs.  
  
Jared turns to him, lips pursed in annoyance. “What the fuck do you want from me, Jensen?”  
  
There’s too many answers to that questions. Jensen chooses the easy one.  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“Right,I forgot.” A brief pause. “You never want anything.”  
  
“That’s not –“  
  
“Except,” Jared interrupts, “that you actually do and whatever I do, _however_ I do it, it’s never fucking right!”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes. It’s an old argument. They’ve played it out too many times.  
  
“Does it feel good, playing the victim, Jared?” Jensen asks. “Always putting the blame on everyone else, huh?”  
  
At that, Jared’s hands clench on the steering wheel. But now that he started, Jensen doesn’t want to stop.  
  
“God forbid anyone has anything to say to you. You get angry, you yell, you throw things–“  
  
Jared’s foot presses on the pedal, and the car dives forward in an instant demonstration of Jensen’s thought.  
  
“I see all those anger management classes paid off,” Jensen comments, fully aware of what reaction it would bring out.  
  
But Jared surprises him. He stays silent, like he never does. Never did, at least.  
  
Jared drums his fingers on the steering wheel in an unknown rhythm, hands still clenched, but easing up. He completely ignores Jensen’s presence in the car.  
It’s a few long seconds till Jensen realizes that Jared is really not going to say anything else on the matter.  
  
He’s left a little unsettled.  
  
Their fights were always a performance. Jared’s raw anger and unfiltered thoughts, Jensen’s sarcasm and mocking laugh that fueled that. Now, Jared pulled closed the curtain in the middle of the act. Jensen doesn’t exactly know where to go from that.  
  
When they arrive, there’s a Queen song playing on the radio – _The show must go on_.  
  
Jensen almost wants to laugh.  
  


 

                                   


 

 

The body is on the side of an off-beaten path of a National Park. Vegetation hides the most obvious signs to the curious eye.  
  
But the smell of decomposition, rotten, stomach-churning, that Jensen swallows every time he breathes in – that can’t be masked.  
  
And, in spite of all of that, there’s a cheerful blond man dressed in faded jeans, a Kings of Leon band t-shirt, and gloves heading straight towards them, smile wide and eyes bright.  
  
“Agents Padalecki and Ackles, right?”  
  
They nod in unison. The blonde’s smile gets even wider. Jensen wonders how that isn’t hurting his jaw.  
  
“Oh my god. You _are_ those guys!”  
  
That can mean any number of things in their line of work, unfortunately. Luckily, Jared picks up the task of clarifying the mystery. He does with the permanent frown and arms crossed, look that should be intimidating, except the guy in front of them seems to possess no survival skills – or social ones.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“The ones killing kids in the name of some big gay love.”  
  
Jensen’s sharp intake of breath is matched by a step forward by Jared. It’s unconscious probably, the easy shift into a fighting stance.  
  
The guy seems to notice it. “Whoa, whoa, chill, big guy. Didn’t say I believed all that shit.” He shrugs. “Story’s not always like you see it from the outside.”  
  
Jared relaxes a fraction, enough to give both Jensen and the blonde peace of mind. As much as Jared’s always been the hotheaded one, this time, Jensen was there with him.  
  
It’s their story –  known to everyone and their cat, broadcast on national television for days on end, covered, discussed, analyzed. The story that follows them around, never gives them a chance to drop their guard for fear they’ll become those men again.  
  
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Jared asks, in his characteristic bedside manner.  
  
The guy raises an eyebrow. “Murray. Chad, if you’re nice,” he adds, and Jensen has a little piece of advice, namely don’t play with matches near a tank of gas. “M.E. on this case.”  
  
Jared frowns. “Where’s Felicia?”  
  
“Dude. Felicia had a baby. Like, two weeks ago. ” Murray studies Jared for a moment. “Where the fuck did they send you after that shit storm? North Pole?”  
  
“Cold Cases,” Jared answers a bit grudgingly.  
  
Neither of them are eager to share their current assignments. They were the scapegoats in the story. Jared got transferred to a division he couldn’t do much public damage in, a punishment cruel for the man of action who thrived on the quick pace of Counterterrorism.  
  
Jensen was objectively luckier, getting assigned to White Collar Crimes. Maybe it was because his dad was an FBI Assistant Director once upon a time. He was assigned to a new division, a new city, a new life.  
  
And then there’s Chris, who got demoted for covering for them.  
  
“Well, isn’t a cold case anymore,” Murray says, and signals both of them to follow him towards the body. “Victim is a Jane Doe. No identification, no clothes, no particular marks aside from a tattoo on her pinky finger, all other fingerprints burnt off, like all the other victims. The tattoo is some kind of signature scribble. I’m guessing that’s why you two are here.”  
  
Both Jared and Jensen nod.  
  
“Cause and time of death?” Jensen asks.  
  
“Asphyxiation, and … I’d say about three or four days ago, though you’ll have to wait on the tests to have a clear answer to that.”  
  
Jared’s about to speak, but Murray interrupts. “I don’t know yet. Can’t tell with absolute certainty that it’s the same M.O. and not some disturbing copycat, but yeah, there’s a good chance your case went from arctic cold to the hot piece on the five o’clock news.”  
  
Jared nods, then takes off towards the group of crime scene investigators gathering up evidence without a word.  
  
“Who pissed in his cereal this morning?” Chad asks Jensen when Jared’s safely out of hearing range.  
  
Jensen shrugs, and because he once loved Jared, leaves it at that.  
  
“Tell me more about the evidence you found,“  is what Jensen says instead.  
  


 

                                      


 

 

Back at headquarters, crammed into the same two cubicles buried under paperwork and evidence, Jared and Jensen continue to work on their case. Which, Jensen observes, means mostly testing the definition of insanity – reading the same ten lines in a file and hoping for a different result, every time.  
  
It’s only them in the office, plus a couple of agents that work with different time zones, as shown by the line of clocks on the wall.  
  
“This is not working.”  
  
Jensen is good at stating the obvious.  
  
Jared leans back in his chair, runs a hand through his hair. He looks at Jensen, searches for something in his eyes.  
  
“I don’t have any other ideas,” Jared sighs.  
  
Jensen can’t hide his surprise at the admission. It’s one that comes with a high price, Jared’s unbridled desire to always be right. Jensen takes it as a white flag.  
  
“Let’s call it a night. Sleep on it.”  
  
Jared nods in agreement. It's nice, the rare moments when they find common ground.  
  


 

                                          


 

 

The whole sleeping on it thing - it actually might have worked, because Jared is vibrating with intensity when Jensen shows up the next day.  
  
“It hit me this morning,” Jared starts, “but didn’t know until I checked if it was the case with others.”  
  
Jared rolls forward on his chair, spreads some photos in front of Jensen. They’re shots of all the victims. Jared points at the one from the first woman.  
“She had open heart surgery when she was twelve.”  
  
Jensen squints. “I don’t see any scar.”  
  
“Right?” Jared then points to the second victim. “I looked up her medical record, too – knee surgery. Ugly one, that would have definitely left a scar. Third one is still unidentified, so no medical record to check. This one had a c-section, this one,” he points to the last photo, “should have an appendectomy scar.”  
  
Jensen’s brows knit in a frown.  
  
“Are you telling me the killer covered up the scars purposefully?”  
  
“Yeah. When I first looked at these files, I thought the tattoo on the fingertip was a mark of possession – it fit with the cause of death, violent and personal. But – “ Jared adds cocking his head, ”when you came in, it got me thinking.”  
  
The small smile that spreads on Jensen’s face is almost involuntary.  
  
“Some things don’t change,” he mutters, more to himself, but loud enough that Jared looks up abruptly.  
  
 “Anyway,” Jared continues after an uncomfortable second-long silence, “you found the same signature on a statue – which clearly doesn’t fit with my first theory.”  
  
“You think removing physical imperfections adds up to someone searching to create, mold something – art of some kind,” Jensen completes Jared’s thought.  
  
“Twisted and disturbing, but, yeah, art.”  
  
Jensen rubs a hand over his stubble. “But by the same line of thought – isn’t an artist proud of a completed piece? I would think he’d keep them on display, rather than dump them somewhere in the woods.”  
  
“I spoke with the Murray kid earlier, actual time of death on the victim we found this morning was anywhere between four and six weeks ago.”  
  
Jensen narrows his eyes. “I saw that body. No way it would be in a state like that after a month decomposing.”  
  
“Which means the body was well-kept by the killer –“  
  
Jensen interrupts when the lightbulb goes off. “He’s storing them and discarding the ones he doesn’t like!”  
  
“I think so, too – the ones he’s gotten bored of, or simply doesn’t think he did a good job on …”  
  
Jensen shakes his head. “I think it’s a practical issue, though – say you paint, for example. But there’s only so much space on your walls to hang the paintings.”  
  
“Right.”  A pause, and Jared’s thoughtful gaze scanning the images in front of them. “But I still don’t get the timeline.”  
  
“What is it that you think doesn’t make sense?”  
  
“Not that it doesn’t make sense, more like it’s random – or _random_ to us, at least. First two bodies, two years ago. Then three bodies show up a month after each other, give or take a few days. Then a pause for almost a year, and now we have a new body.”  
  
“Not really … _new_ ,” Jensen feels the urge to add.  
  
Jared smiles briefly, hollowly. “You know what I mean.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jensen concedes, with a small smile of his own. Then, turning serious again, “Like you said – it’s really random to us. But in the killer’s head, there’s a logical explanation for it all.”  
  
Jared nods, not really satisfied with the explanation, but resigned with the fact that it’s all they’ve got right now.  
  
“I think that’s the fucked up thing,” Jared mutters after a pause where they both succumbed to the world of their thoughts.  
  
“What?”  
  
“That there are people out there who find logical reasoning behind killing innocent people.”  
  
Jensen inhales sharply, then lets out the breath slowly – the answer’s a landmine. Jared catches on quickly.  
  
“I did what I had to, Jensen,” he says in a low tone, but with conviction.  
  
The sincerity in his eyes makes Jensen uneasy. Jared truly believes it. But Jensen can’t. He believes that there was always another way. He believes the kid Jared ended up killing was innocent, even if the circumstances didn’t tell that story.  
  
He knows Jared saved countless lives. The problem is, Jensen wanted to save those plus one.  
  
“Jared … I don’t – you know we disagree on that.”  
  
He doesn’t understand Jared, not anymore. Jensen doesn’t know if the clenched jaw is a sign of anger or frustration. Or both, or neither one.  
  
“Yeah. I know, “ Jared says, eyes locked with Jensen’s. “I know, Jensen. It’s all my fault.”  
  
But that – that Jensen hasn’t forgotten. It’s too much a part of Jared. It’s blame, disappointment, all directed inward with the same conviction Jared had uttered the last sentence.  
  
It would be easier, at times, if Jared did play the victim. Or if Jensen believed Jared was the trigger-happy villain the news stories painted him as.  
  
As it is, it’s just a truth seen from different sides, and the unequivocal proof that love isn’t always enough.  
  


 

                                             


 

 

_THREE YEARS AND TWO WEEKS AGO_   
  
_It’s loud._   
  
_But Jensen’s neighbors must have gotten used to that. Isn’t like they haven’t offered a spectacular performance every night these last few months._   
  
_Jensen doesn’t even recognize his own voice, sometimes. He didn’t think this is who he was._   
  
_“This isn’t fucking war!”_   
  
_“Yes, it fucking is, Jensen,” Jared shouts back, hands balled into fists, anger barely held in. “It may not be on a godforsaken mountain, with a rifle in my hand, but it is war. They made that clear when they killed Danneel.”_   
  
_It hurts, the memory. And the pain melts easily into resentment._   
  
_“What gives you the right, Jared? What gives you the fucking right to take justice for her into your own hands? How does it justify what you’ve been doing these last months?”_   
  
_Jared grits his teeth. “What did I do, Jensen? What? I’ll tell you – I did my goddamn job.”_   
  
_“Your job is not to scare people into confessions. Your job,” Jensen accentuates, “is not to be judge, jury, and executioner. Your job is to defend your country. That’s all.”_   
  
_It might be more of a logical response if it weren’t yelled at the top of his lungs._   
  
_Jared’s body is stiff, compact – hands at his sides, and maybe Jensen expects it, or maybe he’s just lost the power to react when Jared turns suddenly, puts his fist into the drywall._   
  
_It’s that long second where the brain chooses between fight or flight; that odd moment when everything is still, quiet, and the only way back to reality is making a choice between the options._   
  
_“Fuck,” Jared grits through his teeth. “Fuck.”_   
  
_He’s cradling his right wrist with his left hand, and by the grimace on his face, the consensus of the situation is that an FBI agent making holes in the wall is not the best idea._   
  
_“You idiot. That’s your firing hand,“ Jensen says while he manhandles a still fuming Jared into the kitchen chair and goes straight for the pack of ice._   
  
_Jared accepts it without much protest._   
  
_There’s only the sound of Jared panting, and Jensen’s own breath, too loud._   
  
_Jensen falls back into the chair across from Jared, suddenly exhausted._   
  
_He closes his eyes, breathes deep, blows it out slowly. Focuses on something else._   
  
_“God damn it. Why are we fighting again?” Jensen asks Jared, but more himself._   
  
_“If I remember correctly, it was because I left my coffee cup unwashed in the sink,” comes Jared’s smartass reply._   
  
_Jensen can’t find it in himself to be comforted by that. He was, at the beginning. He was, when this happened once a month, maybe, and didn’t hurt as much._   
  
_And, when Jensen looks at Jared, he finds a reflection of his thoughts. There’s no hint of humor. Just Jared, tension in his whole body and dressed in a shirt stained with blood._   
  
_Jensen was at the kitchen sink, ready to wash the few dishes from dinner. He found Jared’s cup. In itself, it was annoying, given how particular Jensen was regarding the cleanliness in the house. But when he turned to Jared to tell him that one more time, all he saw was that blood._   
  
_It’s maybe a few drops of crimson on white._   
  
_It’s the memory of Jared beating the answers out of their latest suspect. Just a few punches – but enough  of a motivator for the guy to betray his convictions._   
  
_It’s the fear that he and Jared are drifting irrevocably apart._


	4. Chapter 4

  
  
The coffee shop is crowded. There’s a line at the counter, people tapping their feet and checking their phones impatiently.  
  
The electronic music gets lost in all the chatter, but still sounds in Jensen’s ears as he makes his way across to the far end of the immense room.  
  
He looks around, all the time fiddling with his hotel room card in his pocket. The casual attire of jeans, t-shirt and a light jacket makes him a bit uneasy. No gun, no badge. He feels naked.  
  
The anxiousness is derailed when he hears someone call his name.  
  
“Jensen! Hi!”  
  
He spins his head towards the voice, and is greeted by the sight of Genevieve in workout gear, hair pulled up in a ponytail and the widest smile on her face.  
  
She has her arms outstretched at her sides, and Jensen only takes a few steps until he’s enveloped in a tight hug.  
  
The tiny brunette squeezes the life out of him until he actually hugs her back, long seconds where he’s convinced they’re making fools out of themselves, but still it feels wonderful.  
  
“Hey, Gen,” Jensen whispers into her hair.  
  
He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he missed her.  
  
They sit down, and Jensen’s pleasantly surprised to notice Genevieve has already ordered his favorite, a Latte Macchiato that Jared always called his princess-y froo-froo drink, even though it’s literally just coffee and milk.  
  
“How are you?” Jensen asks, because these things are awkward, especially after so many years.  
  
Genevieve smiles. “Good. Just came from yoga.”  
  
“Jesus Christ. It’s 8 AM on a Saturday. How – _why_?”  
  
“It makes me feel good,” she shrugs. “So I do it when I have time. That’s what you do with the things that help you, Jensen. You make time for them in your busy schedule.”  
  
Jensen promptly ignores the thinly veiled lecture.  
  
“But the question is, what are _you_ doing out of bed on a weekend morning?” she adds, with a playful twinkle in her eyes.  
  
She’s right to be suspicious. Jensen used to hate getting up early on days he didn’t have to work. But that was when he spent his mornings in his own king-sized bed, kissing trails over Jared’s hipbones, phones forgotten somewhere in the clothes they scattered in a path through the hallway.  
  
“I told you I was in town, and wanted to see you.”  
  
Genevieve sizes him up. “Bullshit, Ackles. You haven’t called, texted or otherwise given any other sign of life since you left.” She tilts her head, purses her lips in a smug grin. “You need a favor.”  
  
Jensen pauses for a moment, unsure whether to admit it straight up, but ends up nodding meekly.  
  
“Sorry,” he adds as an afterthought.  
  
“No need to be sorry. Past is past, and now’s the present. What do you need?”  
  
“Just like that?”  
  
“Jensen,” she sighs. “Not dwelling on the past doesn’t mean I’m not conscious of it. I’m sad that you didn’t talk to me … to us. But I understand why you thought you couldn’t.”  
  
He stammers through an explanation that is more honest than what he expected from himself.  
  
“I don’t – it’s not that I didn’t want to, Gen. It’s just – I always told myself I’d do it tomorrow. I almost called a lot of times.”  
  
Genevieve’s answering smile is small, genuine, encouraging. “It’s okay, Jensen. It really is.” She shrugs. “If it’s any consolation, Jared’s right here and it took me about a year to get him to talk to me.”  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Well, yeah. He sent a few texts those first few months. _I’m fine, all good,_ ” she mimics Jared perfectly, “and other monosyllabic bullshit. Took me a while to actually get through that hard head of his.”  
  
It’s a selfish way to think about things. But it makes him feel better, that he wasn’t the only one suffering the consequences. Far from the reality he’d known, his mind built another one, one in which Jared went on being happy, unconcerned by what he had done.  
  
“Well, he’s good now,” Jensen can’t help himself from commenting.  
  
Genevieve stays quiet, locks gazes with Jensen, searches for something in his eyes.  
  
“Right,” she says, eyes narrowing. “So he doesn’t – he didn’t seem – on edge to you?”  
  
Jensen frowns. He doesn’t understand the question. Jared’s never _on edge_. Angry, frustrated, impulsive, maybe. But nervous, almost never.  
  
“Gen … is there something you’re not telling me?”  
  
He is an agent, after all. Detective skills are a perk that comes with the job.  
  
“Nope,” she says a little too quickly. “Just asking.”  
  
There’s a niggling voice at the back of Jensen’s mind that tells him that he should investigate further. But in all honesty – he doesn’t know whether he has the necessary energy.  
  
Asking a simple question about Jared’s well-being is like dropping a snowball from the top of a mountain – it’s bound to turn into something he doesn’t know if he can deal with.  
  
Genevieve saves him from an answer. “So, Ackles. About that favor. Tell me.”  
  
So Jensen does. He tells Genevieve how he and Jared have hit a wall in the case they’re investigating these last few days. He tells her how they need her, because the lab is backed up, and their case is not going to be a priority in the immediate future.  
  
Jensen gives her all the sordid details, and Genevieve, because she’s an excellent data analyst and an even better human being, just nods, smiles and tells Jensen that she’ll do all she can to help them.  
  
They spend the rest of their coffee reminiscing, and Jensen surprises both himself and Genevieve when he starts laughing honestly at a story about Steve.  
  
Their meeting leaves Jensen confused. Sad. Scared. A tiny bit happy.

 

                                                  


 

 

_EIGHT YEARS AGO_   
  
_Danneel laughs, tucks a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. “Come on, Padalecki, you’re next.”_   
  
_“No,” Jared shakes his head vigorously. “No way. I am not dancing.”_   
  
_Jensen watches as a six-foot-four, built-like-a-brick-wall former Marine squirms in his chair at the prospect of dancing._   
  
_Steve groans. “You disappoint, Padalecki.”_   
  
_Genevieve butts in, seemingly the only one with any kind of compassion for the new guy and the rites of passage he’s supposed to go through before becoming a full-fledged member of their tight-knit counterterrorism team._   
  
_“Steve, I distinctly remember you patenting ‘trembling like a leaf’ as a dance move when you first joined us.”_   
  
_Steve glares at her without any heat. She smiles innocently, then turns to Jared._   
  
_“You’re coming with me.”_   
  
_It’s times like these that Jensen doesn’t understand how Genevieve is not a field agent. She surely has supernatural powers of mind control. It takes her about ten seconds to grab Jared’s hand, and manhandle him to the dance floor of the dimly lit establishment._   
  
_Acoustic, the bar they’ve been coming to for more than five years, is cozy and familiar. There’s good music, too – but you couldn’t tell that by how Jared’s moving._   
  
_Poor guy. Apparently he refused the invitation with good reason. Stiff body, beads of sweat rolling off his forehead – to say that Jared has two left feet would be doing the guy a favor._   
  
_“Good thing he has more coordination than that in the field,” Steve chimes in between bites of steak and French fries._   
  
_Danneel seems to agree with him. “Don’t tell anyone he’s licensed to carry a gun. Might make them a little twitchy, and we’re off duty.”_   
  
_Jensen just laughs, leans back in his chair, enjoys the hilarious view that Genevieve and Jared are providing. The difference in height alone provides entertainment – but add in Jared’s skittish movements, and Genevieve’s repeated tries to get him in the rhythm of the music – it’s blackmail material for years._   
  
_Steve pats him on the back. “Come on, Mr. Smooth, go out there and show him how it’s done.”_   
  
_Jensen’s tempted to do it just to put Jared out of his misery. It’s Genevieve’s pleading eyes finding his that convince him do it._   
  
_He takes a few steps forward, cuts in swiftly, taking one of Gen’s hands in his, puts the other one around his middle._   
  
_Jared looks confused for the shortest moment, then utterly relieved._   
  
_Jensen follows out of the corner of his eyes as Jared’s slowly shuffles back to the table, and when she turns to Genevieve, they exchange a look that promptly sends them into a fit of giggles._   
  
_“I think that’s enough torture for tonight,” Genevieve whispers, but doesn’t seem too convinced._   
  
_Jensen looks back to the table, fully expecting to find Jared still recovering from his strenuous ordeal – instead, he finds Jared watching him closely. There’s heat in his eyes – and what surprises Jensen, Jared doesn’t look away when their eyes meet._   
  
_There’s no leftover trace of nervousness, or fear. He holds steady until Jensen can’t anymore, and he turns back to Genevieve._   
  
_Jensen tells himself that the wave of warmth spreading through him is from all the whiskey he’s been drinking._   
  
  


                                                


 

 

Tuesday morning finds Jensen fetching the third round of coffees at eleven.  
  
They’ve got nothing. They have a bunch of little clues that feel like they _should_ add up to something, but don’t, a string of searches that come up empty.  
The silver lining is that he and Jared finally found some footing in their new relationship – some common ground where they’ve managed to have civilized conversations for minutes at a time, and they aren’t even about dead bodies.  
  
Still, at noon Jensen finds himself on the roof again, cigarette in one hand and phone in the other, thumb tapping over the keyboard.  
  
He knows Gen’s busy. She stayed in the Counterterrorism division, and he knows from experience, work is less nine-to-five and more 24/7, find free time when you can and run with it. But he can’t help it – maybe it’s looking forward to this case being over, or maybe the impatience and frustration of hitting walls every time. He sends her a text asking whether she found something.  
  
It takes Gen a few minutes to answer.  
  
 _Not yet. Tell you when I do._  
  
Jensen lets a curse escape his lips. He crushes the cigarette butt with his foot on the ground, and stares at the skyline, hopes for some sort of divine inspiration.  
  
The phone buzzing in his hand is definitely not his answer.  
  
 _You didn’t text about the case._  
  
He frowns at the screen. That doesn’t make sense. Maybe Genevieve didn’t mean to send that to him. He thumbs a quick reply of _What?_ Just to check his theory.  
  
Jensen fully expects to be proven right, until the next message comes in.  
  
 _You texted because you know there’s something wrong with Jared, and you can’t figure it out, and it bugs you._  
  
Jensen stares at it for a while.  
  
He can’t decide about what he’s more angry about – that Genevieve is right or that she knows him so well.  
  
Jensen had dismissed Gen’s offhand comments about Jared. It was easy to do it, until he was back in his hotel room alone, with cold pizza and a bad movie.  
It was like an itch that he couldn’t stop scratching, even though he knew it was bad for him.  
  
The scenarios he concocted in his head never made sense, not for the Jared he’d been in love with. But then again. Time changes everything.  
  
It didn’t change that Jensen still cared about him.  
  
 _So why don’t you tell me?_  
  
There’s only an instant after he presses send that he regrets it.  
  
Genevieve’s reply comes quickly.  
  
 _No. His to tell. Yours to ask._  
  
But Jensen can’t; doesn’t want to. It would be a clear admission that he still cares, and he can’t give that to Jared– not when Jared didn’t give any indication that there was anything left of his feelings for Jensen.  
  
Jensen lights another cigarette.  
  
The smoke clouds reality, diffuses into the memory of the look in Jared’s eyes whenever he watched Jensen. It made Jensen feel on top of the world, like he had all the control.  
  
The look that first night, when Jensen realized what it was, and the look in Jared’s eyes the last morning they spent together, when they both knew it was over, but couldn’t bring themselves to talk.  
  
It’s a bitch, realizing that Jensen never had any control at all.


	5. Chapter 5

  
  
  
_FIVE YEARS AGO_  
  
_Jensen runs his fingers through Jared’s closely cropped hair, keeps the other hand in a white knuckled grip on the arms of the couch. Jared’s kneeling between his spread legs, moaning around his cock, sound that travels down his spine and turns him inside out._  
  
_Jared eyes flutter shut as his head bobs up and down, deft fingers playing with his balls and generally making Jensen lose all coherent thought._  
  
_Jared’s good at this – good when he flicks out his tongue to lick a stripe from the head of Jensen’s cock upwards, good when he takes Jensen’s balls in his mouth and good when his fingers dig into Jensen’s thighs, leaving bruises and marks and spots Jensen will touch later just to remind himself it’s all real._  
  
_Jared swallows him, lips stretched obscenely, spit trickling down his chin – and Jensen can’t do anything but let his head fall back in a strangled moan, and surrender – surrender sanity, control, reaching that blissful moment when he falls over the edge of the cliff._  
  
_The only sound is his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, faster and faster, until Jared’s mouth, Jared’s hand,_ Jared _is his only connection to the moment and to the feeling. He breathes, hard and shallow, and he wants to scream, escape, tell Jared to go faster, deeper, rougher, and maybe Jared understands, because he does, and that’s it, that’s all Jensen has in him._  
  
_Jensen’s hips stutter, lift and he pushes farther down Jared’s throat in a reflex, and Jared chokes on a whimper, shaky sound that seems infinite, seconds disintegrating into that single feeling, seconds molded in the rhythm of his own heartbeat._  
  
_Jensen opens his eyes to find Jared looking at him, tired and half-lidded, with a satisfied grin. He curls his fingers in Jared’s t-shirt, tries to pull him up in a kiss, to taste those puffy, come-shiny lips._  
  
_Jensen doesn’t expect Jared’s features twisting in a grimace at the gesture. He pulls back._  
  
_“Jared?”_  
  
_“I’m fine.”_  
  
_Jared’s voice is scratchy, hoarse, and Jensen might attribute the sandpaper-rough quality to the blowjob if not for the frown marring Jared’s features._  
  
_“Jared.”_  
  
_“Everything’s fine,” Jared huffs. “Just give me a minute.”_  
  
_Jensen tries not to get worried. He succeeds, mostly because he’s a trained federal agent, and mostly because he distracts himself enough by struggling to tuck his own dick into his pants and look presentable – or ready to go, at least – in case of any emergency._  
  
_When a long, awkward minute passes, and Jared still hasn’t moved, just bowed his head into his chest and started rubbing his right knee, Jensen decides it’s time to take matter into his own hands._  
  
_He’s about to speak – to ask to be clued in – when Jared interrupts him._  
  
_“It’s my knee,” he mutters, almost grudgingly. “It’s an old injury from my second tour. Acts up sometimes.”_  
  
_He raises his head, tries for his trademark confident grin, and fails spectacularly. “Didn’t think it would be quite like this.”_  
  
_It’s not really an apology, because Jensen doesn’t think Jared possesses those words in his vocabulary, but it might as well be. It’s the frustration and shame rolling off Jared that surprise him._  
  
_“It’s okay,” Jensen tells him, because it has no reason not to be. Just Jared’s stubbornness over not doing things differently, but that’s a mountain he’ll climb another day, maybe in a moment when not all his brain has been sucked through his dick. “Do you need something?”_  
  
_Jared shakes his head. “It’ll pass, give it a minute. Just locked up a bit.”_  
  
_Jared has the gift of understating, so Jensen gets up carefully and goes for the only thing he’s sure there is in any fridge, even Jared’s – a bag of frozen veggies._  
  
_By the time he’s back in the living room, Jared’s managed to manueve rhimself into one of the armchairs. He has his right leg propped up on the empty coffee table, eyes closed and fingers traveling from his right knee to the thigh, kneading deeply._  
  
_Jensen passes him the icepack, Jared mumbles thanks, but leaves it in his lap, doesn’t use it._  
  
_Jensen sits back on the couch, one he’s familiar with from all the time’s he’s been in Jared’s apartment, even when they were trying to convince themselves it was just two guys, a game, and too many drinks._  
  
_“So,” Jensen starts when he thinks Jared is able to focus on him. “Seems like I ended up with the broken G.I. Joe. Have to say, not what it said on the packaging.”_  
  
_He feels like he has the right to know. Like this was something he should have known about Jared. They’ve been together half a year, and that’s only the time measured since they were finally smart – or stupid – enough to admit it to themselves and each other._  
  
_Jared shrugs. “Passed all my field tests, I was given the all clear. Didn’t see a reason to make a big deal out of it.”_  
  
_“I see. And this was the perfect circumstance to find out about it.”_  
  
_Jared looks at him. “You’re angry?”_  
  
_He actually seems surprised by it._  
  
_Jensen sighs. “No. You’re a stubborn idiot, but, no, I’m not angry.”_  
  
_Jared wouldn’t understand Jensen’s concern. Jared’s still more soldier than anything._  
  
_And maybe that’s a good thing. Jensen trusts it, because it’s Jared’s instinct, because Jared knows no other way to be._  
  
_“That was the saddest blowjob in history,” Jensen teases after a few minutes of comfortable silence._  
  
_Jared glares at him. “I’ll show you –“ he starts, whole body expanding forward, but promptly stops when the move reaches his knee,” – um. When I can move again, I’ll show you. Then,” he finishes almost sheepishly._  
  
_Jensen has to consciously stop himself from laughing._  
  
_Jared is genetically incapable of backing down from a challenge._  
  
_But, turns out, Jared is able to move after a few hours, quite flexibly. Still, for the first time in the last six months, when they go to bed, all they do is sleep._  
  


 

                                            

 

 

It still rains in New York.  
  
Jensen doesn’t know why that surprises him. It’s like he needs to relearn everything he ever knew about this city. He needs to relearn everything about himself, all the things that he was so sure that defined him and proved to be nothing but scattered piece of a transient reality.  
  
Jensen wakes up Thursday with a train of thought already leaving the station. He feels heavy, tired, inert. He’s waiting, hoping for something that tells him how to be, what to feel, anything but this. How to not feel like everything around him is made of sand, dissolving in his palms once touched.  
  
That day three years ago, when everything came to a head, there wasn’t an explosion. Jared’s actions prevented that.  
  
But Jensen still feels like there was, like he’s picking up pieces of himself from the ground.  
  
“Sir? Agent Ackles, sir?”  
  
It’s the receptionist of the hotel he’s been staying in. Rob, Jensen thinks his name was. He might have been trying to get his attention for a while. Jensen focuses on him.  
  
“Someone left an envelope for you,” Rob says with a polite smile.  
  
He places a small envelope on the counter, and Jensen eyes it warily.  
  
“Who left it?” he asks out of habit to question everything.  
  
 “Baby.”  
  
Jensen backtracks. “Excuse me?”  
  
Rob shrugs a little awkwardly. “That’s the name that was left.”  
  
Jensen stares at him for a while, watches as the color in his cheeks goes from rose to crimson. Eyeing the envelope again, he decides to pick it up, and put the poor guy out of his misery.  
  
“All right, thanks, Rob. Have a good day.”  
  
The receptionist stammers out a reply. “Y-you too, sir.”  
  
He’s saved by the desk phone ringing. Rob’s answer is perfectly formal as Jensen steps away, envelope in hand, shaking his head and smiling slightly.  
Genevieve sure knows how to brighten his day, even when she’s not there.  
  
The envelope has _Ackles_ neatly written on one side, and when Jensen opens it, a small data stick falls out. There’s a blue Post-It that goes with it.  
  
_All I could find based on what you gave me._  
  
Jensen mutters a silent thank you to Genevieve. He’s ready to start the car, get to work on it – in his eagerness, he almost misses the writing on the back of the Post-It.  
  
_“I let it go. It's like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home.”_  
  
He rolls his eyes, places everything back in the envelope, and throws it on the passenger seat.  
  
Jensen turns on the radio and starts the engine.  
  
He won’t admit that even over the guitar riffs and shouted lyrics of AC/DC’s _High Voltage_ , all he can think about is the words on the paper, dancing in front of his eyes, ringing in his ears. He doesn’t want to admit that they’re what Jensen needs right now.  
  
A soft cushion at the end of his fall, a truth that absorbs all his faults. A truth that forages deep into his fallacies, in all the things he hides under the illusion of self-control.  
  
Jensen drums his fingers on the steering wheel, hums along to the song, calm, composed, loyal before all on the outside. Jensen thinks, screams, runs, escapes, falls, gets back up, in his mind, searching for absolution, yet he doesn’t know what that means at all.

 

 

                                            

 

There’s a coffee on Jensen’s temporary desk and a small smile as Jared looks up from his monitor.  
  
“’Morning. The vic’s been identified. Angela Tremont, age nineteen. She’s a college student at one of the local universities. Majoring in Human Studies.”  
  
Jensen glances at the picture on Jared’s computer and frowns. “That doesn’t fit with the other victims we found. They were hookers with no immediate family, and the Jane Doe probably is too. Killing a student seems a little high-risk, it creates waves, maybe even hits the press.”  
  
“Right. But going with the art theory we’ve got going – maybe that’s exactly his intention. He’s tired of being the only one admiring his work, so he shares, puts his signature on something and makes it public.”  
  
“He’s escalating,” Jensen nods. “I have something too.”  
  
Jared kicks into gear instantly.  
  
“Gen?” Jared asks.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“She’s a saint.”  
  
“She is,” Jensen agrees. “I have a feeling that we’ll spend half of this month’s salary on chocolate.”  
  
Jared shrugs. “Worth it.”  
  
“I see that it doesn’t take much to get you excited.”  
  
“Do you know the description of my job, Jensen?” Jared asks. “It very rarely fills the _field_ description in my title.”  
  
That must be driving Jared crazy. He’s a man of action – Jensen was always the one who appreciated a steadier rhythm of things. And, for the most part, his current assignment offers it. Chasing art thieves, or recovering priceless artifacts – it’s not as taxing as actively fighting terrorism. But it’s the pressure that made some days interminable and some seconds infinite that Jensen misses, the sense of immediacy it gave him. He was helping people. At the end of the day, no matter how worn out he was, how he felt every muscle, every part of his body hurting – he’d been happy. Content, relaxed, grateful. He’d slept knowing that he was doing a good thing.  
  
Jensen brings Genevieve’s files up as Jared tries to get his hands on the mouse. Jensen bats it away. “Gen put together files on two potential suspects,” he announces when he’s reading. “One Misha Collins, 32, tattoo artist. No priors, but he’s got a missing wife.”  
  
“What’s that got to do with our case?”  
  
“The wife looks very similar to the other victims – she’s 5’5’’, brown hair, slim build.”  
  
Jared doesn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know if that’s enough for us to look into him.”  
  
“It wouldn’t be on its own – but the last victim, the college student? How recent is that photo of her? Because she’s blonde in it … and brunette when she was found.”  
  
“What are we saying? That he’s changing their appeareance, trying to get them to fit with an image he has in his head?”  
  
Jensen turns to him. “Think about it. He covered scars, and all the bodies were found in perfect condition.”  
  
“Except for the fact that they were dead.”  
  
“There’s definitely a reverence for whatever the bodies represent,” Jensen continues, ignoring Jared’s comment, “and also makes sense why we still have a Jane Doe.”  
  
“Right. Changing their appearances makes finding their identity harder.”  
  
Jensen nods in agreement. “But burning off the prints – that’s a purely practical thing. Has no artistic value.”  
  
“So he’s smart, too. Knows a thing or two about police work.”  
  
“Uh-huh. This Collins guy was a lawyer until he decided to change careers in his early thirties, opened up a tattoo shop.”  
  
“Okay. Worth checking out,” Jared complies. “Who’s the second guy?”  
  
“Jeff Morgan. University professor teaching Art History and Visual Culture at the college the last victim studied.”  
  
Jensen stops, ponders the information. “Well, that’shat’s the obvious connection. What Gen dug up and based her findings on was that he has a cabin not far from the locations the victims were found.”  
  
“Burn off the prints, but leave the bodies close to home?” Jared asks dubiously.  
  
“Maybe he likes to revisit. They’re close locations from his cabin, but not exactly on the beaten path.”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “I don’t know. Too many maybes.”  
  
“It’s a lead, Jared. Everything is better than nothing, which is what we had until now.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jared replies thoughtfully. “We’re going to check them out,” he adds, digging in his pockets and throwing Jensen his car keys.  
  
“I’m driving?” Jensen asks, confused.  
  
“Yes,” Jared replies firmly, and starts walking towards the elevator.  
  
Jensen gets his answer immediately. There’s an obvious limp in Jared’s gait, a slow shuffle compared to the usual long, steady strides.  
  
Jared’s right knee is causing him trouble again.  
  
Jensen thinks he found another answer, the one to Genevieve’s questions.  


 

 

                                                 

 

 

It’s one of the times that Jensen doesn’t enjoy the music filling up the silence in the car. Jared’s strangely quiet, looking out the window, tapping a slow rhythm his left foot on the flooring.  
  
Jensen, for a reason unknown to him, feels the need to say something.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
Jared turns his gaze to him. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”  
  
Jensen keeps a hand on the steering wheel, motions with the other towards Jared’s knee.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared answers. “It’s just the weather and pushing too hard in the gym.”  
  
Jensen wants to ask if Jared still goes regularly. Jensen wants to know if Jared’s body still looks the same, with rock-hard abs and a back that curves and dips with each movement, with each arch, with each thrust. He needs to see if Jared’s _USMC_ tattoo, the Eagle, the Globe, and the Anchor still molds the same over Jared’s bulging bicep, if the colors still stand out against that tan skin.  
  
Jensen doesn’t say anything.  
  
Mostly, because he knows there’s no right answer to be given.  


 

 

                                          

 

 

When they arrive at the university to talk to Morgan it’s stopped raining. Jared gets out of the car slowly, carefully – and when he finally does, he leans back against the side, takes a few deep breaths, blows them out slowly.  
  
Jensen’s tempted to ask him again if he’s okay to do this. But he understands it would be pointless – he’d do the same, he’d push through it.  
  
They find Morgan in class, wait for him on the hallway. Jared’s eyes dart around, scanning the passing crowd attentively.  
  
“What can I help you with, gentlemen?” Morgan asks when he finally gets out of the auditorium.  
  
“You can answer a few questions,” Jared replies harshly.  
  
Jensen puts a hand on his elbow, like he used to, so many years ago. It means asking Jared to let Jensen take the lead. And Jared still understands it.  
  
“There’s been a murder, and the victim is one of your students,” Jensen starts, pulling out the photo of the girl. “Do you recognize her?”  
  
Morgan purses his lips into a thin line, shakes his head.  
  
“I have a lot of students, Agent. Maybe I’ve seen her in one of my classes, but I don’t remember her specifically.”  
  
“So you don’t have any idea about the groups she hung out with, or if she had any problems, anything?”  
  
Morgan raises his head from the photo to look at Jensen, deep brown eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “I just told you that I don’t remember.”  
  
“Right,” Jared intervenes. “You have a cabin up in the woods. Do you go there often?”  
  
It’s not that Jared isn’t good at interrogations. It’s that he doesn’t bother with the subtleties of them, too much of a straight shooter.  
  
Morgan is rightly confused by the turn of conversation. “Yeah. I go there on the weekends to take a breather, the city tires me. Why?”  
  
“There’s a link between the location of your cabin and our crime scenes,” Jensen replies cautiously.  
  
“Well, that’s unfortunate, but I still don’t understand what that has to do with me.”  
  
“The nature of the crimes leads us to believe that there is a connection.”  
  
Morgan smiles. “You’re talking a lot of bullshit, Agent. Do you actually have something to ask me? Maybe if I murdered the poor girl? Maybe if I saw the bodies?”  
  
Jared turns his head sharply. Jensen’s right there with him.  
  
“Right. I guessed so,” Morgan continues. “Well, when you do, you know where to find me,” he finishes, walking away with the same dismissive grin.  
  
“That went well,“ Jensen concludes after a few moments of staring at the retreating back of the Professor’s white shirt.  
  
Jared frowns, stays silent.  
  
“Come on, we still have Collins to talk to.”  
  
It’s the right thing to say to set Jared in motion.

 

 

                                                      

 

 

The meeting with the second suspect goes better. Even Jared’s a little more relaxed, calmer, less impulsive. He looks around the tattoo shop while Jensen talks to Collins.  
  
“So you’re telling me your wife is missing for three years, and you haven’t done anything?”  
  
Collins shrugs. “She isn’t missing, Agent Ackles. She left. Her mother doesn’t accept that, so she filed a missing person report.”  
  
“You’re saying she ran?”  
  
Collins seems too calm. He answers each of Jensen’s questions with an unsettling ease.  
  
“At first, she thought marrying a tattoo artist was exciting. I had the story, the big epiphany – I was interesting to her. But building a business from the ground up – that’s a lot of work, of sleepless nights and fights in a marriage that wasn’t all that solid to begin with. She wanted to travel, to have fun, _live life_ ,” Collins adds making quote signs with his fingers. “So she did. One day when I came home, she had packed a suitcase and left a letter.”  
  
“When you finally have the business going?”  
  
“I still spend ten, twelve hours a day in the shop. And it’s not like I’m getting rich anytime soon.”  
  
Jensen tilts his head. “But why the missing persons report, though?”  
  
“Told you. Her mother liked to believe she was another person than she actually was,” Collins replies calmly. “Didn’t believe the letter, told me I made everything up, did something to her.”  
  
“And did you?”  
  
It’s the first time Collins shows any signs of irritation at the line of questioning. “No. I didn’t. I loved her,” he answers shortly. “Now, I’d appreciate if you and your partner left my shop. Unless you have any more questions.”  
  
“No, no, I think we’ve got all we need,” Jensen replies honestly.  
  
He signals Jared, and they leave, with little more information than they came in with.  


 

 

                                                 

 

 

They end the day in an empty office, doing all the grunt work to add the clues Genevieve’s files had given them to their case documentation.  
Jared’s completely engulfed in the paperwork, leaving Jensen to stare at his vacantly.  
  
He can’t get the puzzle pieces out of his head. They’re swimming, dancing, turning, twisting, trying to fit together any way that can. Jensen likes this part, putting the details together, working towards a tangible result. He enjoys the process, as opposed to Jared, who always skips to the last page of any book to read the conclusion.  
  
“What did you think?” Jensen asks, because he needs to talk about it. That’s how he works.  
  
Jared turns to look at him. “Huh?”  
  
“About Morgan and Collins.”  
  
“They’re both viable suspects. We still don’t have anything concrete to link either to the murders, though.”  
  
Jensen makes a dismissive motion with his hands. “Not that. Your gut. Which one?”  
  
Jared pauses, puts down his pen and turns towards Jensen completely, crossing his arms.  
  
Jensen wishes he didn’t notice the way his shirt bunches up around his arm muscles.  
  
“Morgan.”  
  
Jensen looks up. “Really? My money’s on Collins.”  
  
“You asked me,” Jared shrugs.  
  
“But why? Isn’t like we got anything out of Morgan. Collins’s story is thin.”  
  
Jared looks thoughtful. “I don’t know. A feeling? Instinct.”  
  
Jensen huffs. “Granted, your instinct and reaction time is like a Swiss clock ninety percent of the time, but there are times when you have been wrong.”  
  
Jensen doesn’t want for it to sound unkind. But it bugs him, that Jared ‘s gut is overriding Jensen’s logic.  
  
“Yes, Jensen,” Jared reacts, “thank you for reminding me. It’s been such a long time, I’ve missed it.”  
  
“Jared –“  
  
Jensen’s intention is not to bring up the past. He just into the case – passionate, like he hasn’t been in a long time, and that awakens a stubbornness in him that doesn’t allow him to let things go, especially when Jensen thinks he is right.  
  
“No, Jensen. I’m not shutting up. Every fucking time –“ Jared roars, volume steadily rising, “ – every fucking time, you need to remind me. I’m telling you this once, and then I’m done – I didn’t make a mistake. I didn’t kill that kid out of some misguided sense of justice for Danneel. I did it because I believed it was the right thing.”  
  
Jensen explodes out of his chair. “Oh, you – When the fuck is killing a sixteen-year-old child the right thing?”  
  
“When he has a bomb strapped to him!” Jared shouts back, nostrils flaring.  
  
“I could have talked him down!”  
  
Jared laughs, and it’s without humor, almost mean. “Jesus fuck, Jensen, _could have_ is not something you base the lives of hundreds of people on.”  
  
“So you didn’t trust I could get him to give himself up?” Jensen asks, suddenly realizing something.  
  
“It’s not about trusting _you_ , it’s about seeing too many kids like that in my tours. Want to know something?” Jared spits out, eyes wide, body stiff, hands balled into fists at his sides. “They’re all innocent! Even the ones that hold the rifle that kills your teammates, even the ones that blow up thousands of people. They’re innocent because that’s the only thing they’ve known, it’s how they’ve grown up, it’s what their parents told them about friends and enemies. Some choices we make, Jensen, but some choices are made for us from the beginning.”  
  
Jensen shakes his head. “I don’t believe that. There’s always a choice you can make, for everything – and that kid – he could have made the choice of listening to me.”  
  
“Maybe,” Jared answers, voice hoarse and almost whispered. “If you’re right, then that’s something I have to live with.”  
  
Jensen stares at him. “That’s it? It’s that simple?”  
  
“I don’t even know what the fuck you want anymore. You want to be forgiven? You want absolution? Go to a fucking priest. I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear.”  
  
“I don’t – “ Jensen starts “I don’t know,” he mutters, falling back in the chair. “I have no clue how to do this.”  
  
It’s painful to be this sincere. To admit to being this weak.  
  
“I keep seeing that moment you pulled the trigger, and I always think I could have done something. I could have said –“  
  
“What? What would you have said, Jensen? What would you have said to convince that kid that he’s not doing the right thing? He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t sweating. He made eye contact with you. He held it. Jensen,” Jared says, and Jensen just now notices that Jared has somehow shifted closer, and has a hand on Jensen’s knee, “that _kid_ – he knew what he was doing.”  
  
Jensen raises his gaze to meet Jared’s. “He didn’t. Not really.”  
  
Jared stays silent. It’s an agreement.  
  
“He deserved a chance,” Jensen mutters, more to himself than to Jared.  
  
“He did,” Jared answers, and if Jensen didn’t know him better, he’d say it was regret he hears. “But so did all the other people in the hotel. It’s a no-win any way you slice it. The only thing you can do to move forward is live with the consequences of your choices.”  
  
Jensen looks at Jared, searches for answers in eyes that look at him in a way that they haven’t in more than three years.  
  
This could be a moment. This could be a moment that defines him, one of his choices.  
  
Jensen stays silent, puts a hand over Jared’s on his knee, and, for some reason, it’s worth more than any words would be.

 

 

                                                               

 

 

“You all right?” Jared asks when Jensen pulls up in front of Jared’s apartment, and Jensen wishes he knew the answer.  
  
He nods anyway, waits for Jared to climb out of the car. He’d accepted a ride home from Jensen unenthusiastically, even though it was clear that the knee was still bothering him. To this moment, Jensen has no clue why he offered.  
  
Maybe because, for the first time since he came back, it doesn’t hurt to be around Jared. It doesn’t hurt to hear his voice, he isn’t afraid of what he’s going to hear.  
  
But Jared isn’t making any move to leave. Instead, he speaks, so low that Jensen can barely hear over the background radio music.  
  
“You asked me if it was easy,” Jared says, taking a deep breath before continuing. “It – it isn’t.”  
  
He turns to look at Jensen.  
  
“What did Gen tell you?”  
  
Jensen frowns. “What?”  
  
“I know Gen told you something. You’ve been acting different since you talked with her.”  
  
“Not that different.”  
  
“No,” Jared concedes. “But I know you.”  
  
Jensen sighs, turns off the engine. It’s clear this is going to be a longer conversation.  
  
“She didn’t tell me anything, Jared. She just asked me if you were okay.”  
  
Jared bows his head to his chest in some semblance of acquiescence. He’s nervous, Jensen’s surprised to realize. Jared’s right hand is shaking slightly where it rests on his knee.  
  
It happens so rarely, that Jensen doesn’t even know how to react.  
  
“Jared?”  
  
It’s all that he can come up with.  
  
“I have no fucking idea how to tell you this,” Jared whispers.  
  
“Tell me what?”  
  
Jared takes a few more sharp breaths before he answers.  
  
“I had panic attacks.”  
  
Jensen needs a few moments to process that statement. “You – what?”  
  
“I had panic attacks,” Jared says with a little more resolution, turning to face Jensen. “After it all happened. I was scared shitless of going around every corner, going into any building.”  
  
“I don’t – how? I mean – you never –“ Jensen mumbles, because it was one of the last things Jensen would have expected Jared to offer voluntarily. “I don’t understand.”  
  
“I didn’t, either. I had no fucking clue what was happening,” Jared admits. “Just felt like the world was coming down on me – I – I couldn’t think. I thought I was going crazy. I didn’t get it. I was in war zones, and didn’t bat an eye. I spent nights with mortar fire landing three feet away from me, and didn’t flinch. And now – it would happen in a building, in my car – _everywhere_.”  
  
Jensen watches Jared, surprised to discover a new face on him after all these years. He listens.  
  
“I could always see everything that could go wrong, all the _what ifs_ that I had to come up with a solution for, but after that kid – I couldn’t think of any – I felt weak, I felt – vulnerable. I had no clue what I could deal with. I was scared of everything,” Jared finishes with a self-deprecating smile.  
  
It’s hard to believe. It’s hard to imagine.  
  
“Are you – are you okay now?” Jensen asks, because he doesn’t know what else to say to all this.  
  
Jared nods, more sure of himself, more like the Jared Jensen knew.  
  
“I started seeing someone,” Jared replies, and Jensen’s taken aback. Jared must notice, because he hurries to add, “A professional someone, Jensen. A therapist.”  
  
“How in the hell did that happen?”  
  
Jared was always one that he insisted to resolve his own issues, even if it was detrimental to him. By the knowing smile spread on his face, Jared shares the feeling.  
  
“I could tell you that Gen dragged me to one kicking and screaming, and it would be the truth, but the bigger truth is that when you’re that desperate, you’re willing to try anything.”  
  
Jensen breathes, tries to wrap his head around all Jared’s telling him.  
  
“Why are you telling me this?”  
  
Jensen doesn’t get it. Is it to gain pity? But that isn’t Jared, either.  
  
“I’m not sure,” Jared answers honestly. “But I think it’s to let you know that I know how it is to be afraid of yourself. Of your own reactions. Of who you are.”  
Jensen can’t look at Jared anymore. He watches the empty street, the dim lights that soften the darkness.  
  
It feels like too much. It feels wrong, someone knowing him to this degree. He feels exposed, scared that Jared noticed more than he ever said to Jensen.  
And yet, it feels so good, so – liberating. Someone understanding him.  
  
When he shifts his gaze back to the passenger seat, it’s empty.  
  
Funny, he didn’t hear the car door closing. He didn’t notice Jared leaving.  
  
Jensen doesn’t feel the tears that roll down his cheeks.


	6. Chapter 6

  
  
  
  
The sky dissolves in the emerging sunlight, orchid melting into grey of the skyline. Stripes of black and dots of white stretch into the horizon, and there’s a low buzz particular to the pleasant hour of the city just waking up.  
  
Jared walks, gym hand in bag, studies the few people around him absently.  
  
There’s always an alertness, a vigilance that’s scratched its way into his habits almost involuntarily. But his mind – he can’t help but think about last night. About Jensen.  
  
Jensen, who has become a constant presence in his thoughts. Jared believed that he’d closed that chapter of his life. He fooled himself that he didn’t love Jensen anymore. That his fingers didn’t itch to call him every night. That his bed didn’t feel empty.  
  
It was fairly easy to lie to himself when reality didn’t give him any choices. When Jensen was far away, when Jared didn’t want to shove Jensen into the nearest wall, and kiss him till they couldn’t breathe.  
  
Jared’s off kilter now Jensen’s here. He overthinks, overanalyzes, doesn’t do the things that once came so easy. He forgets, sometime, how to be around him.  
  
Jared had found, amidst all the torment of the last three years, silence. Peace with himself. Acceptance for who he is.  
  
But Jensen returning shakes the foundation. Not enough to crumble, but enough that it makes Jared tense, restless, uneasy. He hates it. But the uncertainty – he craves those moments when he was sure of himself, when he felt invincible.  
  
Jared’s so absorbed in his thoughts, that he almost doesn’t notice the familiar figure.  
  
His right hand goes to his hip, right where the gun should be.  
  
Jared finds nothing. He doesn’t take his gun on his regular morning trips to the gym. He curses, then scans the street again for Morgan’s figure.  
  
He’s ready. It’s the surge of adrenaline, the hyperawareness that comes when he kicks it into gear. Morgan, finding him – that’s not a coincidence. Not when he looked like he did at Jared, eyes hungry, almost smiling.  
  
Jared drops his gym bag, starts walking faster, almost running. Morgan is dressed in jeans and a light leather jacket, and he’s easy to pick out from the surroundings once Jared focuses on him.  
  
But maybe he doesn’t pay enough attention, or maybe he focuses on the wrong thing.  
  
Morgan raises his hand and Jared feels a pinch in his neck, and when he brings his hand up, he’s sure it’ll come away bloody. But it doesn’t, it’s just warmth spreading through him, world floating away, fraying at the edges, tilting.  
  
“Motherf-“  
  
Words are useless. His limbs are heavy. He realizes a second too late what this is.  
  
And when he falls, the last thing he sees is the sky, blue, azure, smudges of white like brush strokes on the endless canvas.  
  
It’s weird, how that blue turns to green under his eyelids.  
  


 

                                                  


 

 

_ELEVEN YEARS AGO_   
  
_Jared breathes dust. He feels it between his fingertips, hot beads brushing against his skin. He swallows, looks up at the clear sky, blue and empty._   
  
_Funny, the sand tastes a little coppery._   
  
_The sky moves, slides forward, and Jared doesn’t understand how that is – there’s the same shade of blue, how does he get it?_   
  
_He thinks there’s sound around him. Gunfire. Voices, maybe?_   
  
_The engine of the Humvee._   
  
_Jared doesn’t really understand what’s happening. It doesn’t hurt anywhere._   
  
_He feels good. He feels weightless._   
  
_There’s a pinch in his right leg, but he can’t quite figure out what it is. He’s just his mind, body light, barely tethered to it._   
  
_He wants to move. He tries to get up. There’s a hand on his chest, pushing him down, and then he notices, the sky changed, the sky’s brown, creamy light brown, tan._   
  
_Huh. That’s interesting._   
  
_Maybe when he wakes up, someone will finally tell him what’s happening._   
  


 

                                                        


 

Noise.  
  
Metal, clinking.   
  
Jared blinks, slowly, deliberately. He lets feeling spread through his numb body.  
  
When everything comes into focus, he finds Morgan in front of him, lips curved into a grin.  
  
“Hello, Agent Padalecki.”  
  
It’s the instant reaction, all the memories slamming into him, the realization of where he is that makes Jared jump forward.  
  
Or tries to – he’s manacled to a chair and only a snarl escapes his lips.  
  
“I was fairly sure that’s how you would react, so I took precautions,” Morgan says, looking at the metal and leather restraints across Jared’s shoulders and chest in addition to the handcuffs holding his hands to the chairs’ arms. “Have to tell you, the girls were much easier. Smaller, prettier. A little rope and, and that’s it.”  
  
“You fucking asshole,” Jared spits out helplessly.  
  
“I don’t know,” Morgan muses. “I’m relatively nice, given the circumstances.”  
  
“What circumstances?”  
  
Morgan smiles. “I think you know better than to ask me such questions.”  
  
Jared growls, pulls against the chains. It’s fitting that they seem to be from a dog leash – that’s how he feels.   
  
“Maybe it’s not going to be me, but someone will find you, and you will go down,” Jared snaps. ”Soon.”  
  
Morgan’s tone is light when he answers.   
  
“Oh, I’m counting on it.”  
  
At Jared’s confused frown, he adds, shrugging, “At some point, Agent Padalecki, all an artist has left is his legacy.”  
  
Jared stares at Morgan for long seconds. He can’t quite comprehend how a guy that looks so normal, who fitted in with the college background so perfectly, can be so impassive, so cold, so nonchalant about all of this.  
  
Or, well, he can, in a purely rational manner. But when he bet on him as being the killer, as opposed to Collins, Jared bet on a guy he thought was passionate, caught up in his own world to the point of unhinged.  
  
Morgan isn’t. He has a plan, he has an explanation for everything.   
  
“I’m guessing this legacy has something to do with me,” Jared tries, in attempt to stall Morgan.  
  
Jared knows  Morgan didn’t make it especially difficult for anyone to find them. If Jared had to guess, he would say they’re in one of the creepily decorated rooms of Morgan’s cabin. Which was mentioned in the files Genevieve sent them – it won’t be hard to figure out for anyone who is looking.  
  
Trouble is, Jared doesn’t know if anyone is.  
  
Jensen, maybe. But after last night … he doesn’t know. Jensen hadn’t said anything. Jared doesn’t know if Jensen thinks he’s worth saving.  
  
He feels guilty for ever doubting Jensen’s commitment to his duty – but it’s all too blurry, all too foggy. Somewhere, in his mind, a voice admonishes him. He knows, he _knows_ Jensen would do anything.  
  
But still, if there’s anything Jared learned again in the last three years, is that the only person he can count on unconditionally is himself. He holds onto hope, but the reality is, it’s up to him to figure out a way out of this.  
  
Jared listens as Morgan speaks, tries to find anything that could help him.  
  
“Yes, Agent Padalecki. You’re the final piece in my collection,” Morgan says, shifting closer, bringing up a hand and brushing a thumb over Jared’s cheek. “You’re perfect for it.”  
  
Jared grits his teeth. “Should I feel flattered?”  
  
“I don’t know that I care what you think,” Morgan whispers. “The only thing I care about in my pieces is the light in their eyes. That’s the true beauty.”   
He pulls back his hand, walks towards a table at the other end of the room. “Seeing that light dimming, going out completely?” Morgan shudders. “It’s – exhilarating. I don’t think there’s anything more inspiring.”  
  
“Yeah, not the word I’d use.”  
  
“Why? Don’t you crave that peace? Closing your eyes, letting go of everything?”  
  
Jared doesn’t need to think about it; not anymore. Maybe his answer would have been different, three years ago, but not now.   
  
“That’s an illusion, Morgan. Life’s about making it through.”  
  
Morgan chuckles. “Spoken like a true poet,” he mocks. “But see, I think you aren’t getting the whole perspective.”  
  
He’s watching Jared, enjoying this.  
  
“It wasn’t about anything at first. Just me … learning. I made a sculpture. A long time ago. They said … they said it was atrocious. Ugly. Uninspiring. That I didn’t understand it, the human form. That all I did was too – lifeless, rigid.”  
  
Morgan leans back on the table, shrugs. “So I tried to understand it. Do you know how easy it is, Agent Padalecki, to find a prostitute no one would miss if she disappeared? It’s amazing, what the world’s come to,” he says, almost reverently, then grins. “Not that I’m complaining.”  
  
Jared clinches his jaw, struggles against his restraints uselessly.  
  
“But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about the poor girl,” Morgan mutters, rubbing his jaw, “it was her eyes. A blue like the clear sky, and yet, so tormented, so –“ he shudders, “ – they needed my touch. They begged me to give them peace.”  
  
“I’m sure that they did,” Jared mutters, borrowing a page from Jensen’s book on sarcasm. Telling the guy he’s clinically insane probably wouldn’t yield the best results in the current situation.  
  
“You laugh, but you didn’t see how she looked after – she was so beautiful,” Morgan inhales, all the time smiling in a way that makes Jared uneasy. “I put some finishing touches, and she was … perfect. She was exactly how I dreamed. The others … I tried to achieve that perfection again, to replicate it, but … something was just wrong. I would have thought that my student would have been the perfect subject … but I was mistaken. I spent so much time trying to figure it out … and finally, it came to me – she had identity. She wasn’t a blank canvas. She wasn’t inspiring.”  
  
Jared always thought there are some criminals who have a chance at redemption. The ones that can see and recognize what they did wrong. But that’s definitely not Morgan. Morgan’s the architect of his own reality.   
  
It doesn’t surprise Jared anymore, how someone doing something so wrong can believe he’s doing the right thing.  
  
“And I suppose you want to do the same thing to me?”  
  
“You’re art in and of yourself, Agent Padalecki. Physically perfect. But it’s your eyes – “ Morgan stops and stares into them. Jared wants to close them in spite, but instead he holds Morgan’s gaze defiantly. “So unique.  And with such tortured life in them. You’re the villain of your own story. Your beauty and my touch? I will make you timeless. Immortal.”  
  
“So I’m lucky.”  
  
“You are. You get to become a legend with me.  Now,” Morgan says, coming around, closing in, and Jared can feel the hot puffs of his breath on his cheek. “, I’ve appreciated the riveting talk, but there’s little time, and I would really like to finish this properly. Put my mark on it.”  
  
Morgan’s thumb brushes against Jared’s fingers, and Jared feels the bile rising in his throat. He really isn’t interested in becoming The Artist’s last victim.    
  
Jared knows he can’t count on his hands – they’re too tightly bound. But maybe his legs – his legs aren’t tied. He just has to reach Morgan, somehow. Jared isn’t used to feeling this helpless. But what having panic attacks taught him – it’s less about having control over a situation, and more about the reaction to it.  
  
Jared stays silent as Morgan’s hands come up with a clear plastic bag, but he twists and jerks his head trying to keep Morgan from putting it over face.  
  
Morgan mutters angrily and moves in front of Jared – and he kicks out with his legs, knocking Morgan back and away.  
  
There’s so many thoughts. There are so many things running through his head.   
  
He struggles, he kicks. He fights to live.  
  
And it works.   
  
It works, for a moment, for the briefest second, where he inhales sharply, breathes, believes.  
  
It works until he feels the pressure again, until Morgan finally finds a spot where Jared can’t reach him.  
  
Whenthe realization creeps in – that’s when cold fear envelops Jared. He recoils and tries to get air into his lungs, but he can’t –  
  
Black trickles down with each choked breath, with each jerk of his hands and feet – he’s shivering, and he doesn’t feel, and he can’t breathe –   
  
He doesn’t know – it just can’t end like this.  
  
Jared always believed his death would be a hero’s one – on the battlefield, in a blaze of glory. It doesn’t seem fair, that it would come when Jared just learned how much the present means.  
  
Jensen –   
  
The image of him.  
  
That’s what plays under Jared’s eyelids. Jensen in the mornings, Jensen smiling at him.  
  
And Jared floats, he feels weightless, but this time he knows what’s happening.


	7. Chapter 7

 

  
_THREE YEARS AGO_  
  
_Kane taps his foot on the ground in a mindless rhythm. He watches the immense screens in front of him. He wishes he wasn’t here, confined between these walls, limited._  
  
_From here, there’s nothing to do but watch. Watch and try to maintain the illusion that he has power to change what’s happening in any meaningful way._  
  
_“Boss?”_  
  
_Gen’s voice disrupts his thoughts._  
  
_“Yeah.”_  
  
_“They’re at the hotel.”_  
  
_“Good. Get me a visual.”_  
  
_Genevieve can’t. Connecting to the hotel security cameras would be impossible in the time frame that he has given her._  
  
_Specifically, a few seconds under a minute._  
  
_She signals him as much. “Just audio. Both Ackles and Padalecki.”_  
  
_Kane curses under his breath. It’s good. But not enough. He needs to see._  
  
_“Suspect is in the lounge.”_  
  
_That’s Ackles._  
  
_“He’s not letting any people leave. Threatens to detonate if anyone makes a move to do it.”_  
  
_Padalecki._  
  
_“Careful,” Kane attentions uselessly._  
  
_They’re both too headstrong to actually listen to what he’s saying._  
  
_“I’m going around the side,” Ackles’ voice sounds out._  
  
_“Jensen –“_  
  
_Padalecki’s is more worried than Kane has ever heard . It isn’t surprising. But it is unsettling – and for the first time since he decided to cover for them, Kane wonders if he made the right decision._  
  
_They didn’t give him any reason until now; they both kept a clear head in the field._  
  
_“It’s a kid.”_  
  
_Ackles again, with a tone that assures Kane that the clarity thing is definitely out the window._  
  
_Truth is, this was a clusterfuck from the beginning. They chased blindly. They searched every nook and cranny. They worked, day and night, until they had something._  
  
_They were played. They lost people in the name of duty, in the name of cruel beliefs._  
  
_They crossed lines. They went so far over, that the results stopped being worth something._  
  
_And it finally felt like an end was within reach._  
  
_“I have a shot.”_  
  
_Padalecki, steadier._  
  
_“Fuck that. I’m talking to him,” Kane hears Ackles say through the comm._  
  
_He turns to Genevieve._  
  
_She shakes her head. “Blast radius on that bomb is at least two blocks.”_  
  
_“How many people?”_  
  
_It’s worth something – trying._  
  
_“Thousands,” she answers._  
  
_“Kane, let me talk to him,” Ackles demands._  
  
_But they don’t have time._  
  
_Ackles knows that. Which is why he turns off the comm._  
  
_“Jensen has approached the suspect,” Padalecki says with calm._  
  
_Too much calm._  
  
_“Status?”_  
  
_“He’s not responding. Just listening to Jensen.”_  
  
_“Your assessment?”_  
  
_There’s long seconds of silence. Kane wants to reach through the blank screen, do something._  
  
_“Padalecki?”_  
  
_“Use of lethal force recommended,” he says, finally._  
  
_Kane closes his eyes. It’s his decision. And still, days like these, he wishes he was anywhere but in the position of the executioner._  
  
_“Take the shot.”_  
  
_It’s words that mean nothing, and it’s words that mean everything, and it’s words that Padalecki didn’t need to hear, because the gunshot rings out seconds before Kane ever finishes speaking._  


 

 

                                                          

 

 

It’s unmistakable, the sound of the standard issue Glock firing.  
  
Kane hurries towards the cabin. He has no idea why Ackles took him as backup if he was set on to barge in like he did.  
  
Well, he was smart enough not to come alone, at least.  
  
Kane has to believe that if Jensen called him, of all people, it means something. It means there’s still trust between them. Trust that he thought they lost.  
  
But that doesn’t mean this is a pleasant thing. Kane’s ready to find a body that he’ll help carry in a coffin. He’s ready to find the lifeless bodies of people he cares for, because that’s what his job taught him.  
  
He can’t find it in him anymore to be an optimist.  
  
Kane steps through the door, and all he sees proves that he’s right in his beliefs.  
  
Padelecki’s on the floor.  
  
Ackles is desperate. He’s pulling a bag from Padalecki’s head, feeling for a pulse, starting CPR when he doesn’t find anything.  
  
There’s blood.  
  
There’s a body, a man with a bullet hole in his head, and a pool of blood that keeps stretching, reaching for the little cracks in the flooring.  
  
Kane spins around, gives them space, calls 911. There’s nothing he can do for either of them now.  
  
He can’t help.  
  
There’s a rhythm, Ackles counting, muttering, shouting at Padalecki.  
  
He needs Padalecki to breathe. He needs to be someone there when he says everything he’s been keeping in.  
  
And Kane needs there not to be another grave he visits.  
  
A cough. Movement. A change.  
  
Kane turns around slowly.  
  
He isn’t sure he should dare to believe.  
  
But there’s another cough. And another, and Ackles is whispering softly, hands still on Padalecki’s chest, clinging, helping him.  
  
Kane stares at the scene for a few more moments, just a few seconds until the conviction that what he's seeing is real seeps in.  
  
He leaves the room without a sound, goes to meet the ambulances.  
  


 

                                                            

 

 

Kane still doesn’t understand time.  
  
He doesn’t understand how it works in situations like these – he feels like he blinks, and Padalecki’s on his feet, slowly lowering down on the ambulance steps, Ackles a constant presence near him.  
  
Padalecki’s looking at him, eyes tired and bloodshot, and the idiot is smiling.  
  
“Good. You’re alive,” he says, hoping no one notices how his voice cracks around the edges. “Thought I was stuck with a moping Ackles for life.”  
  
But if he thought that would get a reaction out of his former teammate, he is sorely mistaken.  
  
Ackles is too busy staring at Padalecki, fingers brushing against his shoulders, against his collarbone, with a soft smile that makes Kane feel like he’s intruding on something.  
  
He is.  
  
It’s telling, the way they look at each other, lost, timeless seconds where nothing else exists – not the world outside, which still hasn’t changed, even if they feel like it has.  
  
They could have made different choices. All of them. Not better, not worse – just different.  
  
But, then, would have they gotten to this?  
  
To a place where they understand themselves, and each other. To a place where they can accept they’re different, and that is not a bad thing.  
  
To a place where they realize what’s important.  
  
Kane takes a final look at them.  
  
Jared rests his forehead on Jensen’s chest, and Jensen presses a kiss on the top of his head.  
  
Kane leaves with a smile on his face. This isn't an end. This is just another beginning.


End file.
